A South Carolina woman who fed her baby a teaspoon of salt was charged with homicide child abuse after the infant died of salt poisoning Wednesday, police said.
Kimberly Martines, 23, was arrested a day earlier with her 17-month-old girl unresponsive on life support at Spartanburg Medical Center, Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Lt. Kevin Bobo told WECT-TV. The baby had suffered seizures Sunday morning, according to investigators.
Martines’ initial felony child abuse causing great injury charge worsened to a homicide by child abuse charge when the baby girl succumbed to her injuries Wednesday afternoon, Bobo told the Daily News. Martines, a mother of three who lives in Fingerville near the North Carolina border, told investigators she had fed the baby salt, according to the sheriff’s office.
Investigators were still working Wednesday to figure out why Martines fed her daughter the teaspoon of salt, Bobo told the The Spartanburg Herald Journal. Medical staff at the hospital diagnosed the infant with acute salt poisoning on Monday and removed her from life support Wednesday afternoon, investigators said.
The sodium found in every type of salt and soy sauce may cause seizures, a coma or even death if a person ingests too much of it, according to The National Capital Poison Center.
Examples of salt poisoning cited by the Center include a shipwrecked man who drank ocean water, a teen who drank a quart of soy sauce on a dare and infants stricken when salt was confused with the sugar for their formula.
“Sodium is essential to human health, but too much sodium is poisonous,” according to the Center, a service of the George Washington University Medical Center. “Most of us know that too much salt in our diets is bad for people with high blood pressure. But most people don’t realize that salt actually can be poisonous.”
The South Carolina mom charged Tuesday remained incarcerated without bond, county records showed. Bobo told the Herald Journal the state Department of Social Services assumed custody of Martines’ other kids – her baby girl’s twin sister and an older child.
